Saturday, December 23, 2017
9 Christmas Beers to Get You Through the Rest of 2017
One of the cultural misconceptions of the 12 Days of Christmas is that it represents the 12 days leading into Christmas. Actually, the 12 days of Christmas in classical tradition actually begins on Dec. 25. And that seems unusually appropriate this year in the beer-drinking world.
After a season in which a number of retailers reported getting some of the gem Christmas beers late in the cycle and some breweries held off their winter-seasonal releases until December (what a concept), it only feels right to extend your drinking of these beers past the actual holiday. And while I don't want to do the full 12 beers of Christmas thing, there are enough notable offerings this year to leave you trying something new every night until the clock actually strikes 2018.
9) Strange Craft Beer Gingerbread Man
This annual offering is just as inviting as it sounds - both sweet and a little bit spicy, with a bready, almost cookie-like quality. Its only drawback is that it finishes a little too clean for a beer whose attributes you are hoping will linger.
8) Ratio Beerworks Reservoir
This old ale almost flies under the radar in the RiNo brewery's increasingly impressive portfolio. But with both roasty and nutty characteristics, it is both smooth and full - and as solid a winter seasonal as you'll find for the cold weather.
7) La Grivoise de Noel
"The Naughty Noel," a Belgian strong dark ale brewed by Canadian beer maker Le Trou Du Diable,
lives up to its billing with a slightly boozy Belgian candi sugar feel to its body, allowing it to warm you and loosen up family gatherings.
6) Diebolt Joyeux Noel
Another in the line of French- and Belgian-style treats for the season, this dark biere de garde ramps up the winter genre with its fuller-bodied undercurrents, but not so much that it takes away from the straight-up dark and roasted feel that makes it approachable even with its 8.2 percent ABV.
5) Odell Isolation Ale
There are classics out there that, for whatever reason, fall off your radar as so many more options come onto the market. But drinking Isolation again this year was a true rediscovery of a beer this is smooth, roasty and simultaneously aggressive and mellow in the approach to the alcohol in its body. This isn't a "wow" beer; it's just a damn good beer that's great for the season.
4) Bristol Winter Warlock
Similarly, this annual tradition is neither high-octane nor steeped in complexity. But one of Colorado's year-in-year-out Christmastime classics is so spot-on in its all-malt, non-bitter body that you are drawn to it like it's a throwback that delivers everything you want in a beer but more simply. The medium-bodied offering is the very definition of the fireside sipper.
3) The Bruery 10 Lords-A-Leaping
This dark imperial wit ale brewed with 10 spices is a hell of a lot of things at once, producing an extremely complex portrait that is best enjoyed with people willing to discuss it. The cinnamon, clove and allspice are the headliners in this mix, though the coriander may be the piece de resistance, allowing the beer to exit with a spicy kick. Put aside a whole evening for this one.
2) Great Divide Barrel-Aged Hibernation Ale
The Denver brewery's 22-year-old old ale recipe is a winner by itself. But put it into whiskey barrels for a year, and it finds a delicate, unsubtle balance between the huge, malty sweetness of the original beer and a sweet-tinged, fairly boozy touch of the barrel. This may not scream "Christmas beer" like some others on this list, yet the sweet but not overwhelming nature of this malt bomb leaves it far too fascinating to ignore.
1) Port Brewing Santa's Little Helper
It's almost hard to describe what is so enjoyable about this 9.9 percent ABV Imperial Stout, perfect for sharing with friends even in its new 12-ounce packaging. But the heart of its pull lies in the fact that you can taste coffee, cocoa and roasted malts in this body and somehow not taste the alcohol that should be burning up your taste buds. Made with a masterful hand, this is big enjoyment presented in a way that nearly everyone will like. And it's exactly why you wait throughout the year for beers meant specifically to warm up the winter.
One of the cultural misconceptions of the 12 Days of Christmas is that it represents the 12 days leading into Christmas. Actually, the 12 days of Christmas in classical tradition actually begins on Dec. 25. And that seems unusually appropriate this year in the beer-drinking world.
After a season in which a number of retailers reported getting some of the gem Christmas beers late in the cycle and some breweries held off their winter-seasonal releases until December (what a concept), it only feels right to extend your drinking of these beers past the actual holiday. And while I don't want to do the full 12 beers of Christmas thing, there are enough notable offerings this year to leave you trying something new every night until the clock actually strikes 2018.
9) Strange Craft Beer Gingerbread Man
This annual offering is just as inviting as it sounds - both sweet and a little bit spicy, with a bready, almost cookie-like quality. Its only drawback is that it finishes a little too clean for a beer whose attributes you are hoping will linger.
8) Ratio Beerworks Reservoir
This old ale almost flies under the radar in the RiNo brewery's increasingly impressive portfolio. But with both roasty and nutty characteristics, it is both smooth and full - and as solid a winter seasonal as you'll find for the cold weather.
7) La Grivoise de Noel
"The Naughty Noel," a Belgian strong dark ale brewed by Canadian beer maker Le Trou Du Diable, lives up to its billing with a slightly boozy Belgian candi sugar feel to its body, allowing it to warm you and loosen up family gatherings.
6) Diebolt Joyeux Noel
Another in the line of French- and Belgian-style treats for the season, this dark biere de garde ramps up the winter genre with its fuller-bodied undercurrents, but not so much that it takes away from the straight-up dark and roasted feel that makes it approachable even with its 8.2 percent ABV.
5) Odell Isolation Ale
There are classics out there that, for whatever reason, fall off your radar as so many more options come onto the market. But drinking Isolation again this year was a true rediscovery of a beer this is smooth, roasty and simultaneously aggressive and mellow in the approach to the alcohol in its body. This isn't a "wow" beer; it's just a damn good beer that's great for the season.
4) Bristol Winter Warlock
Similarly, this annual tradition is neither high-octane nor steeped in complexity. But one of Colorado's year-in-year-out Christmastime classics is so spot-on in its all-malt, non-bitter body that you are drawn to it like it's a throwback that delivers everything you want in a beer but more simply. The medium-bodied offering is the very definition of the fireside sipper.
3) The Bruery 10 Lords-A-LeapingThis dark imperial wit ale brewed with 10 spices is a hell of a lot of things at once, producing an extremely complex portrait that is best enjoyed with people willing to discuss it. The cinnamon, clove and allspice are the headliners in this mix, though the coriander may be the piece de resistance, allowing the beer to exit with a spicy kick. Put aside a whole evening for this one.
2) Great Divide Barrel-Aged Hibernation Ale
The Denver brewery's 22-year-old old ale recipe is a winner by itself. But put it into whiskey barrels for a year, and it finds a delicate, unsubtle balance between the huge, malty sweetness of the original beer and a sweet-tinged, fairly boozy touch of the barrel. This may not scream "Christmas beer" like some others on this list, yet the sweet but not overwhelming nature of this malt bomb leaves it far too fascinating to ignore.
1) Port Brewing Santa's Little Helper
It's almost hard to describe what is so enjoyable about this 9.9 percent ABV Imperial Stout, perfect for sharing with friends even in its new 12-ounce packaging. But the heart of its pull lies in the fact that you can taste coffee, cocoa and roasted malts in this body and somehow not taste the alcohol that should be burning up your taste buds. Made with a masterful hand, this is big enjoyment presented in a way that nearly everyone will like. And it's exactly why you wait throughout the year for beers meant specifically to warm up the winter.
Labels: Bristol Brewing, Diebolt Brewing, Great Divide, Le Trou Du Diable, Odell Brewing, Port Brewing, Ratio Beerworks, Strange Craft Beer, The Bruery, Winter seasonals
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
The Naughty and Nice Beers List
If you are like the Beer Run Blog crew, you like to do your Christmas shopping late - specifically after Christmas, when everything goes on sale. And if that's the case, you might be able to find a good bargain among this year's Christmas beer offerings, which liquor stores are going to start pushing off their shelves soon.
So, in the spirit of always writing this column as late in the holiday season as humanly possible, it is worth giving a shout out to some of the beers that made the past month seasonally fun, especially as they start disappearing. Like searching for Santa, you'd better look quick before these are gone. And you'd better realize whether you've landed on the naughty or nice lists to figure out what you're getting.
Very, very nice - and knowledgeable about beer:
* Five Golden Rings - Saying that The Bruery's annual seasonal beer is the best on the market almost feels cliched. But when it adds pineapple juice and subtle spices to a Belgian strong golden ale to give it a hugely sweet and slightly tart feel, it's just the best thing out there.
* Tis the Saison - Denver Beer Co's offering was a thinker. You had to swirl its floral flavor around a few times before realizing that what made it unique was the peppermint and spearmint added to it. And then you ordered another one.
* Santa's Little Helper - Port Brewing makes another year-to-year top Christmas beer, but unlike The Bruery, it just stays consistent with a reindeer-butt-kicking imperial stout that warms you completely.
Quite nice
* Upslope Christmas Ale - A medium body and a bold taste made this spiced Belgian-style dubbel a full mouth experience with a slight spice to its backtaste. This Boulder brewery may just be becoming the new king of seasonal surprises.
* Hibernation Ale - Those who make the mistake of going a year without enjoying Great Divide's classic strong ale may forget how its woody, caramel-lined body backed by a strong hop backbone really is one of the most solid Christmas beers around.
* Winter Warlock - Bristol Brewing seemed to add a slight bit of sweetness to its traditionally dark oatmeal porter this year, giving it just a touch of pleasant newness.
Just plain nice
* Winter Tartan Scottish Ale - Maybe the surprise of the Christmas season was this vanilla-laced Scottish ale served up by Rock Bottom Downtown Denver, a unique addition to the holiday pantheon.
* Brr Winter Ale - The other great surprise was a hop bomb by Widmer Brothers that featured a berry-fruit taste rather than a traditional citrus fruit palate with its hops.
Naughty
* Big Shot Seasonal Ale - Fort Collins Brewery offered up a big brown ale that was malty, decently hopped on the back - and no different than a year-round decent brown ale would be.
* Newcastle Winter IPA - Yes, British IPAs are much subtler than American IPAs. But it's still extremely hard to identify the hop presence in this extremely easy-drinking caramel-base beer. It's not awful, just dull - not the kind of thing you want to put in a beer aficionado's stocking.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
If you are like the Beer Run Blog crew, you like to do your Christmas shopping late - specifically after Christmas, when everything goes on sale. And if that's the case, you might be able to find a good bargain among this year's Christmas beer offerings, which liquor stores are going to start pushing off their shelves soon.
So, in the spirit of always writing this column as late in the holiday season as humanly possible, it is worth giving a shout out to some of the beers that made the past month seasonally fun, especially as they start disappearing. Like searching for Santa, you'd better look quick before these are gone. And you'd better realize whether you've landed on the naughty or nice lists to figure out what you're getting.
Very, very nice - and knowledgeable about beer:
* Five Golden Rings - Saying that The Bruery's annual seasonal beer is the best on the market almost feels cliched. But when it adds pineapple juice and subtle spices to a Belgian strong golden ale to give it a hugely sweet and slightly tart feel, it's just the best thing out there.
* Tis the Saison - Denver Beer Co's offering was a thinker. You had to swirl its floral flavor around a few times before realizing that what made it unique was the peppermint and spearmint added to it. And then you ordered another one.
* Santa's Little Helper - Port Brewing makes another year-to-year top Christmas beer, but unlike The Bruery, it just stays consistent with a reindeer-butt-kicking imperial stout that warms you completely.
Quite nice
* Upslope Christmas Ale - A medium body and a bold taste made this spiced Belgian-style dubbel a full mouth experience with a slight spice to its backtaste. This Boulder brewery may just be becoming the new king of seasonal surprises.
* Hibernation Ale - Those who make the mistake of going a year without enjoying Great Divide's classic strong ale may forget how its woody, caramel-lined body backed by a strong hop backbone really is one of the most solid Christmas beers around.
* Winter Warlock - Bristol Brewing seemed to add a slight bit of sweetness to its traditionally dark oatmeal porter this year, giving it just a touch of pleasant newness.
Just plain nice
* Winter Tartan Scottish Ale - Maybe the surprise of the Christmas season was this vanilla-laced Scottish ale served up by Rock Bottom Downtown Denver, a unique addition to the holiday pantheon.
* Brr Winter Ale - The other great surprise was a hop bomb by Widmer Brothers that featured a berry-fruit taste rather than a traditional citrus fruit palate with its hops.
Naughty
* Big Shot Seasonal Ale - Fort Collins Brewery offered up a big brown ale that was malty, decently hopped on the back - and no different than a year-round decent brown ale would be.
* Newcastle Winter IPA - Yes, British IPAs are much subtler than American IPAs. But it's still extremely hard to identify the hop presence in this extremely easy-drinking caramel-base beer. It's not awful, just dull - not the kind of thing you want to put in a beer aficionado's stocking.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Labels: Bristol Brewing, Denver Beer Co, Fort Collins Brewing, Great Divide, Holiday beers, Newcastle, Port Brewing, Rock Bottom Brewery, The Bruery, Upslope Brewing, Widmer Brothers
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Holiday Beer Week, Part Five: The New Champion of ChristmasFor the past two years, no holiday beer has brought more to the season than Port Brewing's Santa's Little Helper, a fiercely dark imperial stout that could keep you warm if you were sitting outside in the snow. It just seemed that nothing would dethrone it as the Christmas beer king.
Then came Four Calling Birds, this year's addition to The Bruery's now-4-year-old collection of rotating holiday specialties. And it just yanked that title away.
Four Calling Birds (the one on the left with less head in the photo) brings its own inky darkness to the table, a trait that leaves even more of an impression in your mouth with the resounding hint of high alcohol in its backtaste. But it adds both the smoothness that defines Belgian-style strong ales and a spice presence - largely, gingerbread - that floats through your mouth. Thus, it becomes the rare beer that will both pound your taste buds with its flavor and soothe you with a cookie-like flavor profile, leaving you thinking this is the beer you really want to leave out for Santa.
Don't get me wrong: Santa's Little Helper (on the right in the photo, with the thick head) remains a rare highly drinkable imperial stout in which you can literally chew on the roastiness of the malt and be wowed. But, at least this year, it's only second on my list of the beers that I want to keep drinking throughout the winter.
And if you need to decide yourself, head down to Freshcraft, which should have both of the offerings on tap throughout most of next week.
This is the last of a five-part series examining the beers of this holiday season. Merry Christmas and happy new beer!
Labels: Freshcraft, Holiday beers, Port Brewing, The Bruery
Friday, December 31, 2010
Cheers to 2010's Great Holiday Beers
* Santa's Little Helper from Port Brewing continues to be the standard-bearer for this season. So dark that it's like the winter solstice. So charged with underlying hop character that it's the imperial stout you wish you could find all year round. It's the perfect stocking stuffer that, in the Christmas spirit and for sobriety's sake, you'll want to share with family and friends.
As the Christmas season winds down - and, as all of the liquor stores discount the holiday beers to make way for new arrivals - let us pause for a moment to honor those brews that have made this season special and just a bit warmer.
Last year I did a feature on the 12 beers of Christmas. And while I thought about that this year as well, I realized that much of the list would be a repeat. My number-one beer wouldn't have changed, and that just gets boring after a while.
So, this year, I just want to call out a few particularly special creations that lit me up like a Christmas tree. If I missed anything particularly special, please feel free to let me know. But without further ado:
* Santa's Little Helper from Port Brewing continues to be the standard-bearer for this season. So dark that it's like the winter solstice. So charged with underlying hop character that it's the imperial stout you wish you could find all year round. It's the perfect stocking stuffer that, in the Christmas spirit and for sobriety's sake, you'll want to share with family and friends.* Left Hand's Fade to Black is like a Santa's Little Helper, but you can actually drink more than one glass in a setting. It's an especially thick foreign stout whose appeal grows more as you look less for the "special" Christmas-ale ingredients of cinnamon or nutmeg and more for a beer that just goes well with the cold weather.
*Moylan's White Christmas Spiced Lager is that beer that will bring smiles to anyone who waits all year long to taste certain ingredients. Though it features a light body, it asserts its spiciness with every sip, as the coriander and orange zest virtually pop off of your tongue.
*Mikkeller Santa's Little Helper 2010, meanwhile, is the combo of the dark and the spiced, a 10.9% ABV Belgian ale that creeps surprisingly easily across your tongue and meets the back of your throat with a hint of licorice and a zip of what can only be called "citrus pepper."
Good drinking to all on this New Year's Eve. And here's to a 2011 with even more challenging and interesting beers to come.
Labels: Holiday beers, Left Hand Brewing, Moylan's Brewing, Port Brewing
Friday, December 25, 2009
The 12 Beers of Christmas: Day 1Santa's Little Helper
In all of holiday beerdom - through the spicy, the dark and the not-quite-either - there is one beer that seems to crash down the chimney with more ferocity than any other of the season. And that beer is Port Brewing's 13-year-old tradition, Santa's Little Helper.
The 10% ABV imperial stout is steeped in both dark, roasty malt and in harrowingly bitter aftertaste hops that sing of its strength. Pouring as thick as the motor oil in the fat bearded guy's sleigh, this presents an alcohol flavor that is certainly present but also is masked somewhat by the prominent chocolate and peat tastes.
Yet, through all this darkness, you keep coming back to the hops, the lingering characteristic under all of the burly, chewy taste that gives it its outstanding foundation and ridiculously loud flavor. It is wildly satisfying, like a brilliantly written subplot to an already top-notch movie, and it works in concert with the rest of Santa's Little Helper's personality to create the biggest burst of flavor to come along in winter beers.
I hope you've enjoyed these past 12 days. I know that I sure have. Merry Christmas.
Labels: Holiday beers, Port Brewing
